Fleeting
by FaroresFlame
Summary: Infinity War spoilers. Bucky and Steve reunite for the first time since Bucky got out of cryo-freeze, right before the climactic battle.


**(a/n)- So I got out of the theaters after seeing Infinity War a few hours ago and I had a lot of varying feelings and opinions about a lot of aspects of the movie, but most of all I have four years worth of feelings about Bucky as well as Bucky and Steve so yeah. There's this.**

 **It's been quite a while since I've been involved in the Cap fandom so please forgive me if there are continuity errors or issues with characterization. I just felt like I had to get something out after that whole thing.**

 **I do not own Marvel or any of these characters.**

* * *

It was in Wakanda that Bucky finally found peace again.

After everything, he honestly hadn't thought it would be possible. There were moments, before the war, when he had felt it. Smoking outside the apartment at night, careful to stand downwind from Steve so he wouldn't breathe any of it in, talking and looking at the stars together. The months when they'd managed to scrap up a small surplus of cash at the end and treated themselves, going out and laughing so hard that Steve had to spend a few moments catching his breath with a grin still on his face. Even during the war, fleeting though they were, he'd had moments with Steve, with his comrades. Sitting around a fire or drinking at a bar, not letting themselves think about the fact that they could die the next day. Bucky, making himself forget for as long as he could about the ways he'd changed ever since Steve rescued them from Azzano and what it could mean.

Then there was snow and ice and pain and then seventy years where he wasn't allowed to feel anything.

Until Steve had come and broken through the haze and it _hurt_ but it was better than it had been before. Still, the emotions had seeped through the cracks, breaking the control HYDRA had over him and they grew and festered like parasites; twisting in his gut, crawling up his throat, burning in his eyes. It had been tumultuous and awful and foreign at the time. With this newfound freedom to think and feel, there was no room for peace.

It was seemingly peaceful in his small apartment in Bucharest. He was able to hide, and nobody hunted him there in the two years he stayed under the radar. He was able to spend some time with himself, work out his past and his present. Who he was. Though it was quiet, he did not find peace within himself in that time, however.

Then Steve came and trouble followed right on his heels, and it didn't stop, not really, until Bucky felt the numbing embrace of cryo-freeze once again.

After he was thawed for hopefully the last time and Shuri worked the triggers out of his brain, he was at a loss for where to go next. If he was being honest, he hadn't thought that far. His only concern after everything had been to put himself under as soon as possible so he couldn't ever be a danger to others again. Now, his mind was entirely his own and he was aimless.

T'Challa offered to let him stay in Wakanda. At first, Bucky had agreed because he knew he would still be a wanted man on U.S. soil, most likely in many other countries as well, and the thought of finding Steve was too overwhelming.

Bucky had been given a home and in return he worked. This gave him a purpose, a reason to live. Wakanda was beautiful, and its people were kind to him, T'Challa and Shuri most of all. As days, then weeks, then months went by, Bucky found himself becoming content in the first time in a very long while. Just because the triggers were out didn't mean his brain was entirely "fixed", however. He'd changed fundamentally from any version of Bucky Barnes he'd been before, and he still had nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks. His new home gave him space to work through it though, to recover and heal somewhat.

He didn't try to contact Steve. T'Challa offered, but Bucky knew he would come if he knew Bucky was awake, and he couldn't deal with that just yet. Bucky was selfish, and he needed time.

Bucky worked, and he lived, and he made friends, and he didn't have to fight, didn't have to kill anyone. He settled into a life where he didn't live just to survive, and he tried to work out how he felt about Steve, even if it hurt.

* * *

While they were preparing for whatever was coming, Bucky managed to get a moment with Steve.

"So, why is it whenever we see each other these days there's some big fight, huh?" Bucky asked with a smirk. Sam looked between them and rolled his eyes while he walked away, but Bucky had learned awhile ago that there was no real heat behind it, and he could swear he saw the hint of a smile.

Steve grinned back at him. He had this look in his eyes that was mostly fond, maybe a bit sad. He patted Bucky on the shoulder and it was easy, familiar. He let his hand settled on Bucky's shoulder. "Pal, has there ever been a time you knew me when there wasn't some sort of fight?" Then, after a moment, the grin faded and he looked down. His hand slipped from Bucky's shoulder to his arm, and just like that the moment became less light, more serious, more intimate. "I uh- I would have come to see you. If I had known you were out of the ice."

Bucky swallowed. "Steve, I'm sorry. I just- I needed some time."

Steve looked back up and smiled again, a little shakily. "It's fine, Buck. I understand. I also didn't really make time to check up on you."

"Well, you've probably been pretty busy, being a fugitive and all."

Steve's hand slowly dropped. He chuckled and shook his head a little. "Yeah, well. There is that."

They looked at each other for a few moments in silence. Bucky's chest felt heavy with guilt. Steve was a stubborn punk, but he also possessed a seemingly endless amount of compassion and forgiveness for the people he cared about. Forgiveness they probably hadn't really earned, Bucky felt in his own case for quite a few reasons. He knew that staying away from Steve during those two years in Bucharest and not letting him know he was out of cryo for as long as he had been really hurt Steve, but Steve would be damned if he admitted it.

Bucky wanted to say something, something more. He had all of these feelings, ones that had been suppressed when he was a confused teenager and a scared adult; feelings that had been all tangled ever since he broke his programming, feelings he'd untangled and processed and accepted as he stayed in Wakanda. They were bursting in him now and he wanted to tell Steve. He wanted to hug Steve again, a real hug this time, maybe even pull him in for the kiss he should have had the courage to give when he was twenty and stupid and chasing after girls he didn't actually want. He wanted to love Steve, freely, and allow himself to be loved back, if that was how Steve also felt.

Bucky didn't do any of that, because even after all this time, after everything he'd done, he was still a coward. He smiled, patted Steve on the shoulder as Steve had done to him earlier but not letting his hand linger, and said, "It really is good to see you again." Steve nodded back and his answering smile was less strained.

 _Later_ , Bucky told himself. After this was all over. The odds seemed almost impossible, but they always did and he and Steve always managed to make it out, and Bucky would have time to talk to Steve afterwards.

* * *

Being in the heat of battle again was simultaneously familiar in an awful, intimate way and yet felt wrong after being out for so long. Still, Bucky fell into the rhythm smoothly, at one point even hoisting up a nearby raccoon with a gun that could apparently talk. That wasn't even the oddest thing he'd seen today. The future was bizarre.

The battle was tearing up Wakanda, destroying the beauty of the land and killing the people. This place, where he'd been let in and accepted, treated as a person. It made him angry, and he channeled that into his form, almost relishing the surge of emotion compared to how he used to kill as the Soldier, cold and emotionless and calculated. It probably wasn't healthy, but it helped.

* * *

Something was terribly, terribly wrong. Not just with the fight, but Bucky himself felt horrifically _wrong_. He felt out of control in a way he hadn't since the triggers had been pulled out of his head.

He walked towards Steve and called out to him.

Then, suddenly, he felt himself disappearing.

As abruptly as the abrasion started, there was nothing.


End file.
